


Icarus Steps into the Dark

by buckysstars



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Character Death, Crying, Gen, Heavy Angst, Old Man Steve, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Reminiscing, Sam Wilson deserves better, death sux haha, i hate endgame, i'm really going through it, icarus - Freeform, icarus steve, old man steve hater, steve rogers i'm sorry baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 20:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21021425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckysstars/pseuds/buckysstars
Summary: Steve Rogers passed away.Bucky’s hands immediately begin shaking upon reading this on his smartphone. He’s in the middle of the grocery store, today was supposed to be a normal Sunday.He’s supposed to be stressed from working, recuperate from last week, and prepare for his mission routine again. Destroy what is still left of Hydra with Sam Wilson and what’s left of the Avengers.Steve has lost Bucky but Bucky has never lost Steve before.Steve flew too close to the sun, and he fell. Bucky has to suffer the consequences, as well.





	Icarus Steps into the Dark

_ Steve Rogers passed away. _

Bucky’s hands immediately begin shaking upon reading this on his smartphone. He’s in the middle of the  _ grocery store, _ today was supposed to be a normal Sunday. 

He’s supposed to be stressed from working, recuperate from last week, and prepare for his mission routine again. Destroy what is still left of Hydra with Sam Wilson and what’s left of the Avengers.

Steve has lost Bucky but Bucky has never lost Steve before.

The ache builds up right behind his sternum now, and he thinks the hammering in his chest will never stop. His shaking hands drop all of his groceries around him, cans of food rolling around him, clinking against the hard ground. He’s in Washington, DC right now for a mission, he  _ needs _ to be back home. In Brooklyn. With  _ his _ Steve.

He scrounges all his groceries back into his basket, very aware of people walking around him, staring while he tries to call Sam.

Bucky lets out a sob once Sam answers the phone, hearing Sam choked up on the other end of the line. It’s hard enough talking on the phone with his metal hand, but his shaking hands are causing his groceries to fall again. How is he going to pay for his groceries, with tears spilling like a burst pipe? 

“Hey, Buck, I need to call you right back. I’m sorry,” Sam said in the most broken voice Bucky has ever heard.

How Bucky wishes he could drop everything to go back up to New York and wrap his arms tightly around his best friend. His constant.

Bucky makes a decision. A hard one. He apologizes while putting back all of his groceries at a random counter and Sam calls him back. He stops in the middle of the store, a whimper escaping.  _ All _ eyes are on him, it’s like the world froze so they can all stare at Bucky.

He lost Steve. He’s known Steve his entire life. And he’s  _ gone. _

“Bucky, hey, it’ll all be okay,” Sam says on the other end of the phone, his voice grounding him while he feels like the earth’s orbit is going to knock him over.

He forces the front door open and walks. He doesn’t really know where he’s going right now, but he needs to decide now that all eyes are on him. He found out about this loss on his  _ phone,  _ the words etched into his mind forever. This isn’t how it was supposed to happen. He was supposed to be there, even though that was inevitable since Steve had been bedridden.

Bucky had a feeling the last time he visited Steve it would be the last. He refused to believe it, but his mind kept screaming at him. His stubbornness got the best of him, it reminded him of Steve. 

Sam stays on the phone with Bucky, “It was his time to go. He went peacefully.”

He can’t hear those words without feeling sick, an ache behind his sternum. 70 years apart, and they were still brought together.

“Okay,” Bucky inhales a sharp breath in, his voice full of tears. “I wanted to see him again.”

He breaks down in the middle of DC, overwhelmed once again by the city, the tall buildings surrounding him and there isn’t enough oxygen to breathe. His Steve is gone. The buildings in DC aren’t Brooklyn, the desperacy to be in Brooklyn gets the best of him and he breaks down. 

This is his Steve. The Steve he grew up with. 

Inseparable in the schoolyard and the battlefield. 

He doesn’t know what to do with himself. He forgets for a moment about Sam on the other end of the line, listening to him cry with city street noises filling the air. “I know, Buck, it’s going to be okay.”

“I just miss him so much,” Bucky inhales a sharp breath in, his lips quivering. “I was supposed to see him this weekend.”

“It’s not your fault you couldn’t see him,” Sam goes to reassure him, his own voice full of tears—

“I didn’t say bye,” Bucky sobs, he’s never heard his own voice so wrecked. 

It’s the train all over again. His perception and time were distorted, he couldn’t reach out. Everything slowed down and he thought there would be nothing soon. There’s nothing for Steve like there was nothing for him at the bottom of the ravine. He wanted to reach out and grasp the sky, reach out for Steve. He’s here. He needs to be here.

Bucky made it across the street, deciding it isn’t worth fixating on every stranger staring at him. He backs up against a wall, clutching his phone, sobbing into the phone. “I need to go, Sam. I love you.”

Maybe he needs to repeat these words, over and over, to everyone he loves. Steve left this world without Bucky iterating his love for him. He will never know.

“I love you, too. Take care. Tell me when you come back home.”

_ Home. _ His home will always be wherever Steve is. 

His Steve, the one he took care of. The one whose hair he’d sweep off his forehead and receive a punch in the arm, but then the sweetest smile engulfed his face. Steve, who he found day by day to not join the war, to stay home and scrapbook. Steve should have never been exposed to any of the war’s cruelty, changing him forever. It was inevitable, Steve being the biggest fucking advocate this world has ever seen. He will never back down from a fight. He inevitably needed to, and he did.

Steve fought for the entire world. The world fought for him, as well. The Avengers fought for him to stay. To live his life  _ here, now _ . An entire village, begging at his feet to stay.

But it was his time to surrender himself over. He’s suspended into the world now, Steve is with everybody now. 

Maybe Steve really was Icarus.

Steve was given life, but he chose the sun. 

Maybe if Bucky reaches out to the clouds, towards the sun, day or night, he  _ can _ reach out to Steve and he will reach back out. Maybe Steve will be everywhere, his atoms suspended into the air, drifting through time and space, going on forever. Maybe Steve’s atoms will last forever, or at least 10,000 years, joining the stardust floating in space outside of their atmosphere. He’ll join the stars, and eventually the sun. 

Steve’s atoms will reach each and every constellation in the Milky Way, connecting the missing pieces needed to complete it.

Maybe some of Steve’s atoms will find their way back to Bucky.

**Author's Note:**

> aha comment like and subscribe tweet me @buckysstars as you can tell the last two weeks of my life have been AWFUL so i wrote this


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